SM Department Store executive vice president Jorge Mendiola receives the Best of the Best Award from George Svinos, Asia-Pacific regional head of KPMG Australia, during the recent Retail Asia Top 500 awarding ceremonies at the COEX Intercontinental Hotel in Seoul, Korea. This is the second year that SM has been named the Best of the Best among Asian retailers and the sixth time it received the Gold Award for the Philippines by Singapore-based Retail Asia, which polls retailers in 14 economies across the Asia-Pacific region.